HENRY DAVID THOREAU Quotes

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

Henry David Thoreau

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.

Henry David Thoreau

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Henry David Thoreau

Wildness is the preservation of the World.

Henry David Thoreau

We can never have enough of nature.

Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them

Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Henry David Thoreau

What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Henry David Thoreau

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Henry David Thoreau

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.

Henry David Thoreau

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

Henry David Thoreau

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.